Notion Ink Adam - Just another tablet?

Vidit Bhargava

Yesterday's Times of India student edition said allowed "ADAM THE 'iPAD KILLER' MADE IN INDIA". First of all, I don't how will it kill the iPad, before its market release, I really don't know. Yet this product grabs a little more attention, it being made by Indians and running Android OS.

Notion Ink, made by six ex-IITians has designed this one, and the prototype we saw of it in CES 2010 is much different than the one we're seeing at the MWC 2010. Its a different design which now has a rotatable camera. So it makes up for the old badly made prototype. This one is fully functional too.

Equipment wise this device is highly equipped with some sort of power. 3 USB ports, 1 HDMI, Bluetooth + Wifi + 3G, Android, Ubuntu and Chromium OS, a Tegra processor from NVIDIA & a display that has ambient lighting. For once i'm convinced that this has something!

I'm dieing to have a hands on of this one. The software does mesmerize me, not the Android but the Ubuntu one, thats clearly a master stroke. You've also got USB ports, then there is an HDMI also and finally a rotating camera, Awesome!

The most unique part of it is the back track pad, we'll need to figure out how that thing works but as of now we know it works for the little links in browsers. For now it looks innovative!

We knew that India engineers and designers ere doing most of the innovative work at Microsoft, Intel, and Apple. We just needed to take the first step. - Rohan Shravan (Co-founder, Notion Ink, Adam)

Its just the beginning though, these guys have the potential to provide the world with some amazing products. This being one of their first product. Adam has every feel of a fully furnished and technically sound, utility based product. It won't act as a showcase of touch screen.

There are a few problems though, for example the immediate comparison to iPad, its immediate image as an iPad Killer, this dents the whole aim of this project. If you look at it from this angle, it looks like a device intended to copy iPad and add its own techniques to make one of its own & then trying to overpower the iPad with some promotion. First thing, we must know is that Apple is a company that has been in the world market for more than 30 years. The iPad will always be more commercially powerful than this one and for Adam it's very difficult to hamper many sales of iPad, even though its packed with goods.

Coming to the Processor, thats a SoC (System on Chip) from NVIDIA; 1GHz of Tegra 2 whose predecessors were used in Smartphones, Multi-media players etc. However, the NVIDIA site boasts about its capabilities with Tablets. We're yet to see that. So, if the Tegra is even slightly less powerful than A4 then it will have problems, problems with multi-tasking and thats what people won't like. Android however might not do multi-tasking but I can vouch for Ubuntu and Chromium doing that. While, if its above A4 (which too is capable of Multi-tasking*), this one will ease of doing the work.

With a 10.1 inch touch screen we'll have to see whether it does well or not. Remember, most phones have failed when compared to iPhone on the touch screen factor. Here also a full touch screen is provided and if this falls in the category of HTC touch screens it will drown. Just think of beating the screen every time you want to execute a program, its really going to be like beating your old computer to run faster. So thats where I want to see how it does as they've said their providing a capacitive screen with multi-touch possible. This point also goes against many other giants making tablet, remember HPs Slate. However, the hands on for Adam look good, it looks like their touch screens are at least better than the HTCs. No beating Apple this time!

As an Apple fan I was looking forward to buy the iPad but then this one came. Appealing though this product is, I'll still wait for the reviews and if its more aggressively priced than Apple's we can consider this one but for now it provides everything but it all needs to be tested and tried before I can personally buy one instead of iPad (which is releasing earlier than this one!)